The head of the African Union urged member countries late on Thursday to speedily supply troops to a peacekeeping mission to Somalia, ahead of a high-level AU summit next week.
The AU is trying to cobble together an 8 000-strong force to prevent a possible security vacuum in the Horn of Africa nation as Ethiopian troops are set to withdraw.
”I am calling on all our countries to show a bit more solidarity by providing us with men, by giving financial and material means,” AU chairperson Alpha Oumar Konare said.
Several controversial issues will top the agenda at the AU summit on January 29 and 30, where African heads of state, alongside new United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, will discuss the mission to Somalia, as well as Sudan’s desire to chair the pan-African group.
The continuing conflict in Darfur will most likely prevent this, despite a non-binding promise made to Khartoum at the summit last year.
So far, only Uganda has made a firm offer to send about 1 500 troops to Somalia, with Nigeria and Malawi also reportedly having made loose offers.
Ethiopia invaded Somalia last month in what it said was to prevent terror attacks against it from hard-line Islamists who ruled the country for six months.
The government, backed by the Ethiopian troops, has grabbed hold of the entire country, but is struggling to assert its control on warlords and other clan-based militias that were subdued under the Islamists.
Somali government leaders have been trying to drum up support for the peacekeeping mission but contributions are only slowly trickling in.
Somalia is at a pivotal point, with the internationally recognised government attempting to bring some stability to the war-torn nation, which has been without effective government since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohammed Siad Barre.
The AU member states will meet at the headquarters in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. — Sapa-dpa